that one time it happened
by crackers4jenn
Summary: Jeff and Annie share a moment. Then awkwardness happens. Post Debate 109.
1. Chapter 1

Jeff knows that thinking about Annie in that potentially legally binding, morally obstructive way is wrong. Thinking about her boobs? Yeah. That is _way_ more wrong, my friends.

But she had let her hair down (and it unfurled like normal girl hair; it didn't cascade like some done up Disney character, which helped his feelings in that moment properly process, because if cartoon birds fluttered out of it, he was so going to Hell) and it was a little bit blindingly hot.

Then she shoved her boob-adorned chest in his face, under the pretense of _helping_ him with their debate--psshyeah, okay, morality brigade. She totally wanted to suck his face.

And then it happened like this:

Awkward good-bye type thing, where Jeff's mind quickly raced through acceptable and age-appropriate farewells.

Head patting. That seemed both patronizing and heartfelt.

A fast break apart away from each other--like fleeing, really. Like really fast fleeing.

And then some archaic sense of chivalry kicking in that, when more closely looked upon, was probably _dirty old man thoughts_.

"You shouldn't go," he blurted out stupidly, and she turned around, wide-eyed.

He explained, "It's dark. What if some eagle swooped out of the sky and took you back to its nest in the cliffs? How could I live with myself knowing I let you walk into that one thousand percent possible danger? Think of the _minutes of guilt_ that would cause me."

Which is why it isn't a surprise to him that they are currently defiling Abed's room in a way that might look vaguely sacrilegious. It isn't a kinky thing, picking Abed's room, it was more a matter of convenience as related to their escalating horniness.

"Just so it's been stated out loud for legal purposes," Jeff says, tugging at her blouse, "this is morally wrong. On every level of humanity there is."

Annie nods her head agreeably, arms over her head. Her shirt comes off easily. "Actually, I'm breaking a celibacy pact I made with myself at the beginning of the year."

"If Chris Hansen walks in that door? And I'm praying to every God I don't actually think exists that he doesn't, but if he does, I want you to sign a form of consent. And make sure he sees your birth certificate. God," he breathes, "you aren't some kind of child prodigy, are you, hidden in the shell of one _hot_ and busty woman?"

The look on her face tells him she knows _exactly_ what she's doing (driving him insane, currently and _always_, come to think of it), and when she crooks a finger and beckons him forward, propped on Abed's day bed with her bra still on, he thinks maybe the possibility of jail time plus a spotlight on that _To Catch A Predator_ series plus the entire depletion of his life's principles would _so be worth it_.

Which is why it only makes sense that Abed's doorknob starts twisting in that scary movie "the bad guy is attempting to break in" way.

"That's weird," Abed says from the other side of the wood, where therein sanity lies. There is some vigorous knob rattling going on.

Annie scrambles off the bed, panicked. The look in her eyes suggests she is not familiar with the shame-filled slinking that is about to go down.

"Uh!" she says, loud, actually, which makes him hiss _ARE YOU CRAZY?_ at her while she's pulling her shirt back over her head, getting stuck in the arms. There could be an escape route! You don't announce your presence before you check all available escape routes!

"Just a second!" she shouts again, despite his pointing out her INSANITY.

"Uhhhhhm. Annie?" Abed lets go of the doorknob, but not of his confusion. "That's my room."

She laughs, this lucid tone of hysteria ringing out. "I know. I was just--" By now she's dressed and mad, the woman is _mad_, flinging open the door, "--showing Jeff something."

Abed has never been a sucker, which is why he only gets that knowing, distrustful gleam in his eye. "In my room." It's not even a question. Like _In my room? Well, alright, that sounds stupid, but because Jeff is a cool dude who's my soul-brother, I'll appease._ No, it's just full-on statement.

"Uh, the view you have," she says, gesturing towards a heavily curtained window, "it's geographically considered the best in town." Of the classiest abandoned industrialized parking lot slash hobo shanty town. "Jeff didn't believe me, he said--"

"You're _insane_," he supplies emphatically, which. _Yes_.

A dark look shot his way quickly succumbing to forced peppiness. "So I came here to prove that I was right. Which makes sense, because of my strong, liberal-minded personality. A feminist never misses an opportunity to kick misogyny in the rear. Which is what this is. Now."

Abed enters his room warily, an eyebrow arched high. A perusal. He eyes his closet, which is closed, his nightstand, which is also closed, the bed, which bears the slight dent of debauchery and its subsequent guilt.

"Mmhmm," he hums.

"Wow, can you believe it," Annie laughs, "seven o'clock already? I should go. _Jeopardy_ comes on in half an hour, and if I miss it, the weight of academic failure presses down on me."

Abed looks just shy of breaking out a forensic kit, but he allows them both to slip past, the promise in his unfaltering and steely gaze that a detailed and brutal interrogation will go down later. And _soon_.

Once they reach the clean air of common sense outside, Jeff is smacked in the face with the full upstairs-brain knowledge of what downstairs-brain almost made him do: bed the youngin'.

She's barely old enough to remember that Michael Jackson had years where he actually resembled a human being. The 80's existed only to serve as bad-fashion hindsight. For god's sake, man, she's never known a world without The Simpsons in it! How can one person really toil through life if they've never experienced the joyless existence of a Simpsons-less world?

So this is what happens:

A second awkward attempt at saying goodbye. Luckily, her shame is tangible.

The pat on the head is replaced with a thump on the arm. Less patronizing, but more likely to spell out his new mantra, which is _Thou Shall Never Defile Again, Bro_.

And then, basically, running.


	2. Chapter 2

The following morning (after he had practically sexually assaulted a growth-stunted person that just so happened to be the blossoming age of _IT DOESN'T MATTER, SHE'S A CHILD, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LEGAL RESPONSIBILITIES_) Jeff casually awaits the onslaught of awkward and eternal damnation that he's about to be hit with, when Annie bounces into group study.

The fact that she bounces _anywhere_ should've been a clear indicator for his moral compass to pick up on, but, no. Instead there had been malfunction. And brain diseases that caused able-minded grown men to react in disturbing ways. And other malfunctioning not directly related to his brain, but more probably his _blackened soul_. Whatever happened to the icy Hell barrier that surrounded and protected it, anyway?

(For clarification, it was: his tortured soul / on a mound of human skulls / the blood of those lesser a thrashing, merciless sea below)

What good was the icy Hell barrier if it failed in the presence of bubbly-eyed, boob-having Disney Princesses?

Of course Annie shows up right after he does, making them the only two pure, well-intentioned, and certainly never inappropriately horny adults in the room. Where one might actually be an elf. She falters in her joyful yet purpose-driven step just long enough to make eye contact and then directly avoid eye contact, which means that despite his every terrible hope, she hadn't popped something that morning that'd cause a pleasantly effective mind-erasing scenario.

Spreading her books out, she offers curtly, "Hello, Jeff."

_Youngin'_, his mind screams. It almost trips his gag reflex, but he's a stronger man than that. "Hello. Annie."

"I assume you had a decent enough night."

What the tax-paying hell? What was _that_ supposed to mean? Because, uh, _no_, of course he didn't go home and try to find some highly plausible and scientific way to burn the memory of their botched debauchery out of his mind. With no success.

But, hey, on the plus side, he might've found a way to prove religion was a fallacy, so. That happened.

She sits down, smoothing her skirt out underneath her. Like five-year olds do, right, gramps? Remember that. "Mine was okay. I missed the first seven minutes of _Jeopardy_, so my tally was off by the end of the night." Looking in his general direction, but not quite hitting close enough to even be staring at his face, she says, "I know it doesn't mean much, but usually I accumulate enough _Jeopardy_ cash that, theoretically, I'd place first. Not last night," she says, and hey, is that guilt that surfaces? What sane person feels guilt over causing someone to place bronze in their own alternate universe of being on _Jeopardy_?

Abed slinks into the room, his brows already raised lest Jeff or Annie thought they'd get off scot-free.

"Well, hello, Jeff. Annie," he greets, in a way that somehow manages to be both accusing and casual, like yeah, last night happened, but who knows, maybe he forgot the details. Or maybe he didn't. But who knows!

_Puppies - grandmas in kitchen aprons - bears falling asleep holding baby cats - Glenn Beck on a verbal rampage - _

Jeff slings through thoughts in his mind that won't alert Abed to the potentially still lurking visual of Annie in her bra, in case he reads minds now. Which Abed might, along with his gross accuracy for predicting the future: earlier that morning Shirley had told Jeff that some wild dog chased her to her car last night, and angle those words differently, my friends, and you're looking at _werewolf_.

Annie has started to stare at the center of the table, unable to look Jeff's way or Abed's, and because Abed is a sick, sick, _brilliant_ puppet master, he sits at the far end of the table so she's sandwiched in between them. It's masterful to watch the man in action, until Jeff remembers that he should probably be avoiding eye contact too in case a recurrence of those kissing noises she made against the side of his mouth yesterday pop into--

_Keith Olbermann's tirades of sense-making - Snuggies - Curb Your Enthusiasm - old men in fedoras - Pierce in a fedora--_

Long fingers tapping against the table top, Abed is openly staring them down. First Jeff, who only briefly looks away before remembering--what the hell, dude, have you had your _vagina_ replaced lately?--and takes it like a man. Who might've vomited a little on the inside. It's no worse than a retinal scan and it lasts only half as long, but there's that same dry-mouth taste that follows.

And then Abed's eyes flicker over to Annie who, okay, this is getting ridiculous. She hunches over in what Jeff can only assume is her natural position regarding life in general, which is to take whatever's slung her way with a missing backbone. Not that she should grab a bullhorn and alert the masses about their post-debate, fill-in-the-blank depravity time, because that'd be crazy, but c'mon. It's Abed, not Britta. Britta instills the wrath of God, like candy canes and cold beds invoke the power of Christmas. Abed is Britta lite. He's version 2.0, some department store version of the real thing.

Finally Abed deems them ready of words. Well call the mayor and start the parade!

"So," he says, and it's genius how he knows who gets what drawn out syllable thrown their way. Annie gets the bulk of the 's' sound, but Jeff gets all the extra 'o's. "You two. In my room. With my things. What's up with that? Specifically, in relation to my room and my things and you two."

Annie's eyes grow wide. "N--o--thing," she says in a way that might as well've been _Jeff fondled me against your door_!

Jeff finally sprouts a pair and says, "It was nothing. A pallid shade of nothing, even, one that might've flirted with the narcissism of being sallow in its heady days of adolescence. She was helping me pick up some forgotten life necessities. Shaving cream, toothbrush, those _iCarly_ DVDs the library _reluctantly_ let me loan out, but I gotta say. I felt their judgment."

This excuse is registered, filtered, and discarded in the span of three seconds. "Mmmhm. _But._ You didn't carry anything _out_ with you."

Jeff is glad Abed doesn't add, _except the trailings of your once thriving but now barely recognizable dignity_. It's the small victories that keep his conscious glued together.

He says, "I... forgot them? Again?"

"I made the movie, I know the scenes! This script we're following line-for-drab-line--" Abed gestures over the table, alluding to their whole shamble of a conversation, "I wrote it. I _know_ what happened, so how about we gloss over the edited Wikipedia wrongness."

Jeff's eyes zip over to Annie, who's already looking at him. Her eyebrows fly to her hairline, the words expressed therein being along the lines of _Damn you, Winger, do something! Fix this! Think of my resulting reputation as the Greendale mattress if you don't!_

Ugh, fine.

(And there went another chipped piece of protective ice off the icy Hell barrier. At least she wasn't crying.)

"Clamber down the director's chair, Scorsese. You may've struck cherries once or twice, but your fortune telling mojo has been derailed. The kissing? The, let me stress, _one_ time kissing? That was strategic. Yeah. Thoroughly planned, down to the last tongue swipe."

Abed's eyebrows leap to the ceiling. "Tongue?"

Annie blushes and gulps, "Swipe?"

He could get into this debating business, Jeff thinks, pointing a strong finger across the table. No wonder he was called to duty. He's amazing. "So I call foul," he says, "on this baseless harping! Questioning the lady's morals? Implying that I'm anything but a callous, cranky old bastard? How _dare_ you."

Abed's eyes grow wide, argumentatively tactic and defensive words ready to spill.

But Jeff stands up fast enough to make his chair topple backwards (_awesome_), which Annie worries briefly over before he smacks a heavy palm to the table. "This disposition is over! Annie," he demands, "join me."

Her big eyes focus his way. Jeff's busy staring the truth out of Abed, so it takes him a moment to notice that she looks guarded and confused and _c'mon_, woman, he's selling it here, back him up a little!

Mouth dropping into a dainty little 'o', she gathers up her indignation with an adorable, firm scowl and stands less gracefully than he managed. Her sweater unravels off her shoulders with her hasty upwards movement, and when she goes to grab it, it slips through her fingers to the floor.

"Ohh, but, that's--" she squeaks and bends down quick to retrieve it, and Jeff thinks _seriously?!_ but maintains an outward level of oneupmanship.

Hair falling in her face, she rushes to her feet again, fleece sweater retrieved, swiftly wrapped, and ornately decorating her shoulders once again, and hoo-fucking-rah.

"Books," Jeff instructs, and Annie's scowl is so obviously not a scowl, could she be any worse at this?

But then she goes, "Right! Books!" and sweeps them into her backpack--don't think about the backpack, don't think about the backpack, do not think about the backpack and its child-related gadgetry inside--

"Arm," he orders next, angling the crook of his left elbow her way.

He's still staring down Abed--who is gaping with obvious and humbled awe--but even so he sees the light-up, twinkle effect that takes over Annie's face, and she slings her backpack over her shoulder with a grim, new determination, saddling up to his side.

With great purpose, she slides her arm into his.

"_Mi_lady," he says, and it might as well be their battle cry.

Annie is quick to catch on, saying, "Mi_lord_," with a jaunty tilt of the head.

They turn around and march out, arm-in-arm, Abed's slack-jawed speechlessness burning into the back of their heads. There's a silent slow clap that plays in Jeff's ears, and it's only when they've reached the vending machines well beyond the sanctity of their study room that Annie starts to falter.

"Oh, but wait, we still have--"

"Shh," he says with quiet gravity, "You're ruining the effect of our power stride."

"Oh," she easily acknowledges, and onwards they go.

***

"Jeff," Annie breathes out against his mouth several minutes later, her eyes squeezed shut, probably thinking about how she's finally getting some variation of good _7 Minutes in Heaven_ experience to blog about.

He says, "Mmhm?" but it turns into some incomprehensible noise when she inadvertently slides her hand across the front of his pants, a low, back-of-his-throat noise that grown men should not use around--oh, screw it.

She pushes at his chest with enough tiny person force that he breaks away, making him hang awkwardly in the foot of space above her head where she peaks off and he still has half his body.

"What you did in there," she manages, face chock full of pep and eagerness, whereas Jeff is left numbly wondering if he even _has_ a face anymore, all blood pooling in regions better left unmentioned. But netherly speaking. "That was--"

"Gallant? Yeah. I know. You can thank me later," he says with the irony notched up high, going back down for another kiss.

She dodges to the left. "_What_?" her voice halts him, and when he wrenches open his eyes, it's not a pair of puckered lips asking for more. It's little Annie Oakley's version of stern, her jaw set tight, her arms folded across the ample view of cleavage where, up until thirty seconds ago, he was seeing boobs.

His mind backtracks. It takes a few minutes for that enhanced human ability to even kick in, because _boobs_, but then it starts shifting backwards through the seconds. He's blanking and all he can come up with is a wild, inarticulate shrug of his shoulders.

Then in some swift change, bam comes the sultry. If he were any more pathetic, he'd have a more visceral reaction than the one he does have, which is to cry inside _like a little girl_. Kidding, actually, but he feels flames licking at his skin, this electric charge pooling between them. Maybe that's Hell lapping at the underside of his feet, who knows, but really, who even _cares_. He's got enough years left in him to dole out way worse crimes than making out in a storage closet with a girl of questionable but legal age.

"You _do_ know your debate ethics," she grins, and if she's pleased with his inherent ability to whisk up a well-executed lie to get out of an ugly situation, they are going to be _so good_ together.

He slides his hands behind her head, pulls her close, leaves her there waiting for more.

"Man," he proves, "is evil."


End file.
